


Sleep

by softlybarnes



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-15 00:49:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13019763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/softlybarnes/pseuds/softlybarnes
Summary: Bucky can't sleep, but the reader is there to help him. Enhanced!Reader.





	Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think! ❤️❤️

Tension lies thick over the compound. It seeps through the walls, and down gray corridors. Screams and anger echo against the concrete floors, past sleek furniture, and empty bedrooms.

No one mentions it.

They see the pain. They see the dark circles beneath his eyes. They see the slump of his shoulders. They see the tremble in his hand. They see the his chapped lips, bitten until raw and nearly bruised.

But no one says anything, because there’s nothing to say. Bucky Barnes does not let them say anything. He doesn’t want their sympathy. He doesn’t want their words. He doesn’t want their soft touch lest it shatter his fragile heart.

All the walls he has, all his defenses, come crashing down with one look, from his girl, from Y/N. Her gaze lands on him as soon as he shuffles from his room to the kitchen. “Y/N-,” he mutters, a warning in his voice.

“I can help you, Bucky.”

“I don’t need help.” He won’t look at her. If he looks at her his heart will shatter and everything in his very delicate heart with come pouring out. His skin prickles with the feeling of her gaze on him. He feels split open and raw, and he knows the slightest provocation will cause every defense he has to come crumbling down. “I don’t need help,” he repeats, voice shaking. “I don’t.” He won’t put that burden on Y/N. He can get better himself.

Somehow he doesn’t hear her approach his place by the door. Her fingers graze his elbow. “I know you don’t, Buck. But I’m here for you anyways.” The touch lingers for just a moment longer and then it’s gone, the scent of coffee and vanilla wafting around him before fading to nothing.

A hard breath leaves him, one that he hadn’t known he had been holding. He wants to follow her, to trail after her to wherever she had gone, and never be parted from her side.

But that’s not an easy thing to admit, to himself or to anyone else. So he stays froze in the kitchen doorway until Steve passes by and asks if he’s okay. He snaps then, harshly ripping away from the hand on his shoulder, his voice cracking with strain and disuse.

Ignoring the look of hurt on his oldest friend’s face, he returns to his room. It’s only when he gets there that he realizes he hadn’t gotten anything to eat and that he’s still hungry.

 

~

 

A knock sounds on his door that night. It’s firm and heavy and he knows he has to answer it. Y/N stands on the other side. “How are you doing?”

“Leave me alone, Y/N.”

“I’m not bothering you,” she says calmly. “I’m just asking how you are.”

He doesn’t look at her, instead staring at her slippered feet. “Fine.”

“Okay,” she says. “Goodnight. I hope you sleep well.” Again, she reaches out to touch his elbow, fingers soft against his skin. “My door is always open.”

Usually he wouldn’t say anything, usually he says nothing and shuts the door. Because this happens often. Y/N is kind and quiet and he loves her. She’s honest with him where the others weren’t. She’s straightforward and direct, something his scrambled mind appreciates greatly. Today, instead of answering with silence, he says, “It know it is. Goodnight, Y/N.”

A tiny smile tugs at the corner of her mouth. She nods and then walks away. When she turns Bucky chances a glance up, watching her sway down the hall away from him.

He closes the door and feels another crack chip in his heart.

Shaking his head, Bucky turns toward his bed. It’s soft and large and inviting and Bucky hates it. It’s intimidating and he’s terrified, but he walks forward all the same, _determined_ all the same.

The sheets feel like sandpaper against his skin, rough and nightmarishly harsh. And yet the mattress is too soft, like trying to sleep on a sponge cake. He lies stiffly there and closes his eyes, almost afraid of moving too much.

Somehow, he falls asleep.

And, like always.

He wakes up screaming, a desperate cry falling from his lips as he curls into the sandpaper sheets and stifles a whimper. He waits for his breathing to even, his muscles to loosen, and for his heart to stop acting like it was trying to escape its ribcage prison.

When the shaking finally stops and he finds the courage to open his eyes Bucky decides he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care anymore.

Throwing the sheets back he finds himself hurrying in the direction of Y/N’s room. Terror still wraps around his heart when he pounds on her door.

It only takes Y/N a second to open the door, sleepily rubbing her eyes. “Buck,” she sounds surprised. “What’s up?”

“I need your help. I’ve only slept 4 hours this week. My nightmares are back. I don’t know what to do.”

She reaches out and wraps her fingers around his wrist, ducking her head to catch his gaze. “Stop pushing me away, for a start.” Her thumb travels back and forth over the delicate skin on the inside of his wrist. “Stop pulling away from me.”

That’s all it takes to make him fall into her. That’s all it takes for his heart to shatter, for his whole world to crumple and fold.

He finds himself on his knees, forehead braced against her belly. Y/N is shushing him gently. “I know. I know, Buck.”

“I want it to stop,” he hears himself saying. “I just want to sleep.”

“I know,” she says, running her hands through his sweat dampened hair. Then she pulls on his arm. “C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up. I’ll help you. You can sleep.”

“I’m so tired, Y/N,” he whispers. “I’m so fuckin’ tired.”

She pats his head gently. “I know,” she repeats, her voice sounding like a heavenly song. “Come with me.”

Heavily, he does. He rises from the floor with a hope burning through his body that Y/N would never let go of him.

His trust in Y/N is pure and whole and unbounded. So when she asks him to sit at the edge of her bed and take off his shirt, he does. “Like always?”

“Like always,” he answers. He’s been here many times before. Y/N is his girl. “I missed you.”

Her answer is a kiss on the forehead as her fingers find the seam of flesh and metal along his left shoulder. “Have you been having pain again?”

“Always.”

Y/N’s hands go to his cheeks. “You know I can feel the tension.”

“I know,” he says, an apologetic note in his tone. “It’s why I stay away.”

Her thumbs rub slow circles into his cheeks, “I don’t want you to stay away.” Slowly, eyes drifting shut, she leans forward. She waits, waits for Bucky to meet her halfway, giving him the chance to pull away.

Bucky only allows his lips to graze hers, just barely a feeling, a ghost of a kiss, before he pulls away. His eyes are tired. He’s worn and looks older, he knows, gray starting to appear in the scruff on his cheeks.

“Take a shower,” Y/N says. “Or a bath. All of the shower gels I have are aroma therapy scents. Take a minute to relax and then I’ll help you sleep.” She nods at him when he looks doubtful. “I will.” She taps his temple. “There’s tension here too.”

He feels a little better already, and so he stands, nodding at Y/N. The ice around his heart melting, the icicle shards in his mind doing the same. “Okay.”

“Okay,” she smiles and sits, watching as Bucky strips out of the remainder of his clothes before taking the few steps to her bathroom. Her gaze on him doesn’t bother him. He can feel her tracking his every move but doesn’t turn before he goes to the bathroom.

True to her word Bucky finds an array of relaxing shower gels, and soft scented shampoos. He takes his time and tries to stop grinding his teeth. They feel like sharpened daggers in his mouth, sending pain shooting into his skull. But he knows if he doesn’t at least try to relax that Y/N will be able to tell. When he gets out of the shower, tremors still shaking his flesh hand, he finds that Y/N has laid out clean clothes for him. When he touches them they don’t feel like sandpaper, like the dreaded, _hated_ sheets do.

His teeth seem to fit in his mouth again. The iron rod against his spine seems pliable now, the branch of a willow tree and not unyielding metal. His shoulder aches, but the pain seems lessened and he wonders why he had avoided Y/N for so long. He leaves his shirt off, carries it in one hand, knowing that he would just be made to take it off.

Bucky knows why she makes him shower, that the more relaxed and open to the experience he was, the more effectively she could use her powers, the better the Soothe. He hardly thinks he needs prep-work anymore, completely open to Y/N. But then he remembers the way he had avoided her for weeks, and hates himself a little more. All for nothing, all because he feels like he should be able to deal himself.

When he opens the bathroom door he remembers why he had avoided his girl. Y/N is soft and too helpful for her own good. She carries a blatant disregard for her own well-being like a torch against the dark, a brave soldier proud that she is brave.

He can’t imagine what it must be like to Soothe him. He can’t imagine what the pressure must feel like when she touches him. And yet she consistently does. His elbow, his hand, his face, his lips.

Y/N can’t feel emotions or read thoughts. She can feel _pressure_ , see where emotion and pain resided in one’s body, pressure that she can Soothe. She Soothes people, and even just being in the same room with her diminished the pressure. Her eyes are soft and inviting as she beckons him to where she sits in the center of the bed.

He knows the drill and so lets his shirt drop from between his fingers and sits between her spread thighs. For a second nothing happens, and he’s worried that his chipped, snowed in heart might have finally deterred her. But then her fingers graze his ribs on the left side of his body as her lips press to the top of his spine. A shuddering breath leaves him as he bows his head, hair falling to obscure his face. “You’re holding tension in your spine and shoulder. Tell me again about how it-,”

“They replaced parts. Ribs and…other stuff,” he grits out, staring at the photos hung on the wall across from the bed with determination. “And it hurts. All the time.”

A sympathetic noise leaves her as she touches his shoulder with great care. Something cool hits his skin but he doesn’t flinch, knows it’s some sort of oil or moisturizer. “Relax. Your spine is turning to steel again.” He smells coco butter and then feels the slightly invasive feeling of Y/N’s power. His shoulders drop, suddenly turning to a pool of jelly as she continues to kneed her fingers over him, to his shoulders, over his ribs, down his arm, over his back and spine. Tiny kisses are pressed to his spine, peppered right down his back.

Eventually she says, “Do I have permission to Soothe your mind?”

“Yes,” he says gruffly. “ _Please_.”

“Lie down.”

He does, shifting beside her and plopping backward. She leans over him, still beside him, and runs her fingers through his hair. “Relax,” she says one more time, in the calmest and loveliest voice that has ever graced his ears. Just before she touches his forehead she murmurs, “I love you.” And then bliss and sleep finally come to sweep him away.

 

~

 

When he wakes, it’s with a groan. His body feels supple and warm, hard muscle reduced to mush and freedom. Even better is that he had _slept_. No nightmares had plagued him. No screams had left his lips from a desert mouth to choke him. His mind is floating, peaceful.

Slowly, he sits up. It’s daytime now. The light in the room is soft and airy, the breeze from the open window cool against his bare chest.

“Feeling better?” Y/N is curled on a sofa in the corner of the room, a large book held in her hands. She had been on a silent vigil, he know, watching over him while he slept. “You look better.”

“How long was I out?” He asks, running one hand over his face.

She slowly stands from the couch and lies her book down, before moving toward the bed. “Two days.”

When she perches next to him on the bed he reaches out for her. She curls in his lap, fitting against his chest as though she were made to rest there. “Sorry about everything.”

“I’ll always be here.”

“But you shouldn’t have to wait around for me.”

She shrugs, “You were here you just weren’t present. I know it takes you time to come around sometimes. I knew what I was getting into when we got together.” She reaches out to stroke his hair, “I know you’ll always come back, that sometimes whatever’s happening in your head makes you stay away.” Y/N pauses and leans into his shoulder. “And that’s why I think we make such a good couple.”

Bucky pulls Y/N down onto the bed and tucks her into his side. “You shouldn’t have to be my therapist-,”

“I like helping you,” she says, her voice infinitely soft and kind. “I chose you just as much as you chose me. I don’t feel obligated, my guilty man.” Her fingers curl around the back of his neck, “Besides, I think I do just a little more than what an ordinary therapist can do.”

Her fingers dip along the curve of his bicep, releasing nonexistent pressure. He lets out a little moan and pulls her impossibly closer. “You’re right,” he murmurs, dipping his head to brush his lips against hers. “You’re so much more than that. You’re mine. You’re everything.”


End file.
